Plot Teen penguin Cody (LaBeouf) longs to be a surf champ like the late, great Big Z. On tropical Pen Gu Island he enters the contest of a lifetime, but a bodacious lady lifeguard (Deschanel) and a hulking hermit (Bridges) teach him that surfing isn’t about winning...
Review
The 21st Century saw a new genre arise to challenge the Western, the action movie and the David Lynch Baffler. The Penguiner is a flexible template: after the documentary (March Of The Penguins) and the postmodern musical (Happy Feet), it’s time for the surfer flick. No, really. As Surf’s Up’s intro reminds us, penguins have been kings of the breakers from days of yore (one is glimpsed careering merrily down Japanese artist Hokusai’s The Great Wave Off Kanagawa).
Surf’s Up may be a computer animation, but it’s worth watching even if you swore off CGI critters after Chicken Little. Appropriately, it succeeds by practicing what Jeff Bridges’ benign, flippered drop-out preaches: have lots of fun, and don’t worry about winning. Surf’s Up doesn’t feel like it’s out to blow our minds with razzle-dazzle software, although the wave effects in the too-brief climactic scenes are stunning. Very different in feel from Happy Feet, which gets cheekily dissed (“Singing and dancing? Yeah, right!”), Surf’s Up is closer to Lilo & Stitch: a smart, endearing, relatively small-scale comedy.
It’s also a mockumentary that seems to have borrowed some tricks from Blighty’s Creature Comforts, though Nick Park fans know that penguins are treacherous, jewel-thieving bastards. Penguins and other creatures squirm in awkward vox pops; an odious otter promoter (James Woods) has his naughty bits digitally mosaiced in the bathtub; and your eye is drawn to the back-of-frame business in the best Aardman fashion.
Directed by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck (ex-Pixar and Disney), the film follows an over-familiar course as teen penguin Cody (Shia LaBeouf) jousts for glory and suffers a surfing humiliation that’s cruelly but hilariously replayed from all angles, before he finally finds a dad in Bridges to replace the one he lost. But the scenes between Bridges and LaBeouf have real heart, love-interest Zooey Deschanel is charismatic even when she’s sidelined, and Jon Heder jollies things along as a lunkhead chicken connecting with the jabbering natives (“Yum yum!”).
Shame on America for rejecting this unpretentious gem, a dead duck at the box office, which finds leisurely space to develop its characters without slowing to a Cars crawl. If the film fails here, we’ll know who to blame: that git Feathers McGraw.
Verdict A charming computer cartoon, lifted by Bridges’ Lebowski-like performance and a truly funny mockumentary framework.
Surfs Up is a sweet movie with cute charaters to bond with and have a laugh along the way. Shia Labeouf is always the best, without a doubt. Jon Heder is laugh-out funny and sounds so much like his other films. In all, the cutest and funny films for all ages. ... Read More
I'm a sucker for the genre of penguin animation movies, but this is wonderful. Brilliant animation, sweet story and likeable characters. A film for all the family. ... Read More
What can i say. Its easily one of the most enjoyable animated films ive seen since, like, Finding Nemo or the The Incredibles - its really been that long since i enjoyed an animation but this was great stuff. ... Read More
I was expecting an average animation film, but this very pleasantly surprised me. An awesome, original film. The Big Z story was great, the mockumentary idea both clever and unannoying (which I feared wouldn't be the case when it first became clear that this was the angle they were taking on it); and the little penguin Arnold is hilarious. Probably the biggest surprise of the summer, a great film that definitely needs to be seen.
9/10 ... Read More
I was expecting a bog-standard cutesy animation - a big family trip with 6 kids ranging from age 11 down to age 3, and three adults, so we picked what we thought was the lowest common denominator. But...actually we *all* loved it. I really liked the reality TV idea, and although I thought it would grate, it was pretty unobtrusive. the only mild disappointment was Tank, who wasn't a terribly interesting villain. But hey, it's a kid's movie, so dynamic villains aren't usually in the mix anyway... Read More
I took my daughter to see this on the strength of the Empire Review.
It was crap.
Probably the worst CGI Critter flick I've had to endure since the steaming turd that was Barnyard.
Why?
1. The children in the cinema (it was packed) did not laugh and were not impressed. They were bored during the overlong talky pieces to camera.
2. Spinal Tap this ain't! I think Empire were wooed by the fact this was a "surfumentary", you know - for kids? Never had one of those before - ... Read More
L: Deeznutz
I am not a fan of anthropomorphised animals per se but this was great fun. It wasnt reliant on being overtly knowing or cutesy and the whole mockumentary format made a refreshing change too. Also the attention to detail was at times jawdropping; reverse p.o.v. shot with Cody on his surfboard in particular. Typical that this died a death in the US when its bland counterparts seem to clear up.
urely you don't refer to Ratatouille? Right? ... Read More
I am not a fan of anthropomorphised animals per se but this was great fun. It wasnt reliant on being overtly knowing or cutesy and the whole mockumentary format made a refreshing change too. Also the attention to detail was at times jawdropping; reverse p.o.v. shot with Cody on his surfboard in particular. Typical that this died a death in the US when its bland counterparts seem to clear up. ... Read More
Classic
Excellent
Good
Fair
Tragic
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